Get Bent
by experiment
Summary: A small exploration of Ty Lee's character. oneshot. AU
1. begin here

The family came down from the northern country and everyone expected a trio of lunatics (they got them). Ty Lee will remember her childhood as intense moments of a paint splatter man, a woman with ink tipped fingers, and the smell of their respective crafts combined with the feeling of blood rushing to her head. Life does not turn unpleasant until the age of seven.

The man is old-young with graying hair, a stubborn top-knot and armor. Red armor. Ty Lee is also wearing red, as are her mother and father. (She desperately wanted to wear yellow this morning – the red clashed with her aura, creating an awful tearing feeling with in her right leg.)

It is supposed to be a tea party, but Ty Lee knows her parents aren't co-operating very well. Her mother's fingers are tapping out syllables; Ty Lee can briefly hear the silent words (about a dragon). And papa is sketching something out with a tea wet fingertip on the cloth napkin. Ty Lee can't quite see it from her seat, but she knows with certainty that it is brilliant. As for herself, Ty Lee is silent and watchful as the man seeks to connect with the two most important people in her life (she hasn't quite figured it out yet either, or Ty Lee would have helped him).

"Ty Lee, you are a gymnast, correct?" he asks, and the silent words stop, and her father's fingers are frozen on a line. Yes, she nods.

"Where do you study?" he asks.

Ty Lee frowns and her mother, content with words, takes her husband's hand and answers for her child, "We believe that formal education stifles the creative process."

--

Her mother told her that they were all moving to the capital. In the background, her father nods. A four-week trip takes five months because odes to the wind are relevant and the grass absolutely must be painted.

She stretches, resting the sole of a foot on the crown of her head. And watches.

--

The woman and man in a red room with one candle with one flame that neither can control.

The door opens and a peculiar creature tumbles into the room.

"I have met a princess today!"

--

It is sometime during the twentieth tea party Ty Lee has had with General Iroh that a question is asked. She is seven, and the world stretches before her.

"I'm going to join the circus. It's my true calling," Ty Lee replies.

There is a moment of silence as the company contemplates her response.

And then there is laughter from Azula and even Mai's blank slate holds a small smile. Zuko's eyebrows are slanted in, his little face drawn into a pout. Zuko is always pouting.

"I think Ty Lee has a great idea," the General defends her, but Ty Lee does not quite care what anyone thinks (she is still young) – the universe has spoken to her and the circus _is _her true calling.

Azula laughs harder and louder. It's is tinged with something Ty Lee doesn't understand.

--

Ty Lee is in a garden. It is not hers.

"How are you doing that?" The question comes from a girl wearing pointed red slippers. There is a faint line of gold thread that only Ty Lee can see, by virtue of her position. She looks up into a face of curiosity. A halo from the sun frames the girl's shadowed face.

Ty Lee unfolds in a smooth series of unhurried movements and tries to think of a good answer for a princess.

"I just do."

--

She begins every morning with a simple stretch: waist bent, hands and feet on the ground, forehead to kneecaps. She stretches out the sleep-knotted muscles and feels _alive_.

--

"I am attending the Academy." There is no question of what Academy Azula is speaking of – there is only one where a girl of her standing would attend. "You could probably get in also," Azula finishes. This not an exchange of ideas, this is not a connection, this is not a conversation.

_We believe that formal education stifles the creative process_.

--

Ty Lee breathes deeply. And begins.

--

It is a bad day, Ty Lee can tell, because the tea is caught in her throat and on her green blouse where underneath the cloth, breasts have grown and gotten in the way of everything including childhood and she wants yellow – no – blue – no – purple – no – pink. Yes. She wants pink. Ty Lee wants pink.

--

As Ty Lee is leaving, her mother tells Ty Lee that she will write a haiku for everyday that Ty Lee is gone, a lyric for every week, a sonnet for every month, an epic for every year. As Ty Lee is leaving, her father hands her a creased and fastened paper. As Ty Lee is leaving, she does not look back.

Azula commands her to open the paper, and the perfect wax of Ty Lee's family seal breaks under the pressure of her little-girl fingertips. Ty Lee unfolds it, gently, reverently, waiting for the final moment of her father's complete genius.

"It's… blank."

* * *

A/N: I enjoyed writing this. It was not supposed to make sense, and rarely made sense even to me. I'm not sure if it's complete – it seems that way to me right now but I'm sure, if it wants more added to it, it will tell me. If you would like something explained, please drop me an e-mail. I am looking forward to hearing your reactions, good_ or_ bad, so please grace me with a review, even if it's just an observation, anything is welcome.


	2. tiny sleepy

In the mornings, she is tiny-sleepy. And she has forgotten. And then she remembers. And then she is awake.

He curls up into her body, all fluffy-haired and sleepy-scarred too. Scared and scarred. Scarred and scared. That too.

No more pink, not any more. But a charcoaled fleshy-pink color. The residue of a burn. The waxy scar. The healed skin of it. He doesn't like for her to touch, but she does so anyways.

Azula, Azula. Azula's blue flames. Azula's blue veins in her tiny little-girl wrists. Azula gone. Azula dead. Azula, betrayer.

There is nothing between them except for the dead. But she doesn't hate that, just him some days, his silence, his grief. They will always have that, together. The fire and the burn, the deep unfurling of their sorrow.

She taps out the rhythm of the earth and her heartbeat with her fingertips on the tree trunks and cold whispers of the wind on her cheekbones and in her hair. She sucks greedily, deeply of the silence. She vibrates with the tension of her hate, of her fear.

There is nothing left. Of anywhere, of anything. Gone, gone.

He grasps at her. He throws her when he cannot pull her down. His warm gold eyes of everyone she has ever, ever loved looking out of his face and with his mind and she is –

Not. Crazy. She doesn't care what they say. She is Not Crazy. She's not.

She's just missing.


	3. grave play

There is a garden full of dangerous things in her mind. Amid the choking vines and the flowers wearing poison like a perfume, Ty Lee places Azula and Mai one-by-one, carefully into their shallow graves.

"Stay, stay," Mai croaks. It's a wonder she can speak with no tongue, but then again, Mai always did amazing things. The specks of dried blood flake on her cut lips. With each exhale, they are airborne.

"I can't," Ty Lee says. When Ty Lee tries to gently pry Azula's hand from her own pink and healthy wrist, Azula's charred flesh peels and, oozing pus and blood, comes off into Ty Lee's hand. Frowning, she snaps the brittle bone in Azula's wrist. The other girl shrieks and withers like a bloom left in the sun too long, withdrawing her arm to cradle it against her chest.

"I can't stay," Ty Lee repeats. She looks from one girl to the other; her best friends, her very best friends. "I have to live." _--with a dagger pointed at the world's throat_

Weary and wary, hunched and guarding her throat and abdomen like they possess all the treasures in the world, Ty Lee kneels beside the twin graves, and she gathers the moist dirt with both of her hands and pushes it over the edge. Mai moans unhappily and then, again, louder, when more and more dirt falls over the side.

Careful of flying knives, Ty Lee pokes her head over the side of the grave. "Mai, what's wrong?"

"You're getting my clothes _dirty_," Mai spits at her. There's dirt on her cheeks.

"Oh. Sorry. You can buy new ones um... in the afterlife, I'm sure." Ty Lee tries to think of a way to bury someone with out getting them dirty. If she had a coffin, that might work. But she doesn't have one.

"Whatever," Mai sighs out and pulls a face. The fleshy, red cuts on her cheeks split open but do not bleed anymore.

Ty Lee continues her good work. Soon there is dirt caked into the fabric of her shirt and pants, under her fingernails, stuck to her knees, in her cute bellybutton. She shakes her head and dirt falls out of her ears. And still she is not done; still she cannot put the dead to rest.

She stands and looks down at Mai. Ty Lee shouts, "Why can't I bury you? Why isn't this working?" She points to the dirt pile at the side of the grave, as if accusing it.

Mai grins at her, and Ty Lee can see the dirt sticking to her white, white teeth, showing through the cracks like bits of chewed black cake. There is a ring of dirt around Mai's mouth, sticky with saliva and blood.

"Stop that!" Ty Lee cries. "I'm trying to bury you! _Stop eating all the dirt!_"

Azula's blackened flesh comes into view as she lurches up the side of her grave. Ty Lee dodges the first strike, poorly executed by the arm with the broken wrist. But she cannot manage to move out of the way of the kick Azula aims for her stomach.

Ty Lee hits the bottom of Azula's grave with a _thump _and _whoosh_ as all the air in her lungs quickly leaves. Her limbs snap out, uncontrolled, and then she is clawing at the sides of the grave, trying to _get out_, _get out_, _get out_. Mai tackles her, using her weight to push Ty Lee to the ground. Ty Lee claws and hits and _bites_; she accidentally pushes her hand through one of the many puncture wounds on Mai's chest and when she quickly withdraws it from the cold cavern, it is covered in old, dark clotted blood and bits of torn flesh.

She is _screaming and screaming and screaming_. And somewhere above Mai's grinning face, somewhere out of sight, Azula is laughing her crazy, dangerous laugh as she throws handful after handful of dirt onto Ty Lee's grave.

--

You hate green and brown. They are the colors that stupid people wear and of mud. You are not stupid or mud.

--

You hate Zuko because he was weak when it mattered. You hate yourself for surviving when Azula was _so much more_ than you.

--

You are young again, in your dreams, and everything is bright. You see your mother and your father, waiting far ahead. You run, you catch up; you take a hand from each into yours.

They smile at you; you smile back. They lift you between them and you are swinging back and forth. You are always in motion.

Everything is okay.

--

You know. You know? You know everyone you love is dead.

--

You always wake up.


End file.
